Chu Shao-liang (1890-25 December 1963), military officer who helped extend Kuomintang control into Sinkiang by negotiating with Sheng Shih-ts'ai (q.v.) for the withdrawal of Russian influence in that province. Commander of the Eighth War Area in 1938-40, he also served as governor of Kansu in 1933-35 and 1938-40 and ofFukienin 1948-49.

Although his ancestral home was at Wuchin (Ch'angchou), Kiangsu, Chu Shao-liang was born in Foochow, Fukien, where his father was a government official. He received his early education at the military primary school in Fukien and then went to the Nanking Army Middle School. After being graduated from Nanking in 1910, Chu was selected by the government for advanced military training in Japan.

He entered the Shimbu Gakko at Tokyo in 1910 and soon joined the T'ung-meng-hui. In 1911 he returned to China, participated in the actions at Wuchang following the revolt, and served in the headquarters of Ch'en Ch'i-mei (q.v.), the republican military governor of Shanghai. In 1913 Chu took part in the socalled second revolution, which attempted to dislodge Yuan Shih-k'ai from power. After its failure, he took refuge in Japan and enlisted in the 14th Field Artillery Corps of the Japanese Army as a candidate for entry into the Shikan Gakko [military academy]. He entered the academy's artillery course in 1914 as a member of its eleventh class, which included three other Chinese students with whom Chu was to be associated in later years: Ho Yao-tsu, Ho Ying-ch'in, and Ku Cheng-lun.

After graduation in 1916, Chu Shao-liang returned to China. He became an officer in the 1st Kweichow Division, commanded by Wang Wen-hua. He was promoted to regimental commander and then to chief of staff of the division. In 1917, after Wang Wen-hua became commander in chief of the Kweichow National Pacification Army, Chu served as his chief of staff. During the period when Kweichow and Yunnan forces were stationed in Szechwan under the over-all command of T'ang Chi-yao, Chu was defense commander at Chungking. In 1920 Wang Wen-hua was assassinated, and the Kweichow-Yunnan forces were driven out of Szechwan.

After a brief period of inactivity in Shanghai, Chu went to Canton, where he became a staff officer in Sun Yat-sen's headquarters. When the Northern Expedition was launched in mid- 1926, Chu became chief of staff of the Fourth Army's 10th Division, commanded by Ch'en Ming-shu. In the disputes which began after the forces of the National Revolutionary Army reached central China, Chu supported Chiang Kai-shek. In 1928, after the successful completion of the Nationalist campaign against Peking, Chu became a member of the Military Affairs Commission and director of its military affairs bureau. Later in 1928 Chu received command of the 8th Division.

In 1929 Chiang Kai-shek assigned Chu Shaoliang and Ho Yao-tsu to consolidate control over western Hupeh in the struggle against the Kwangsi generals. The Kwangsi forces retreated from central China and then undertook a new offensive against Kwangtung in the south. In September 1929 Chu went to the southern front, commanding both his own 8th Division and the 3rd Division. However, he soon returned to central China to deal with a new threat to Chiang Kai-shek's authority in Honan. In the 1930 civil war against the northern coalition of Feng Yü-hsiang and Yen Hsi-shan (qq.v.) , Chu fought on the Lunghai front. In 1931, after the war against the northern generals ended, he was named special pacification commissioner of Kiangsi province, where the Chinese Communists then had their main territorial base. The fighting against the Communists went badly, however, and in 1932 Chu was relieved of his post. He went to Shanghai. Later that year he was recalled to duty and was appointed to command operations against the Communists in the Hunan-Hupeh-Kiangsi border area.

In July 1933 Chu Shao-liang was assigned new duties in northwest China as pacification commissioner for Kansu, Ninghsia, and Tsinghai. The same year, he was given the concurrent post of governor of Kansu province. Late in 1935, Chu was succeeded as governor of Kansu by Yu Hsueh-chung (q.v.). However, Chu retained his military responsibilities in the northwest and commanded Nationalist forces in the campaign against the Communists that pressed into northwest China. In November 1935 he was elected to membership on the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang at the Fifth National Congress. In December 1936 Chu was one of the Nationalist military officers accompanying Chiang Kai-shek when he was detained at Sian by Chang Hsuehliang (q.v.). After the Sian Incident, the National Government removed Yü Hsueh-chung from the governorship of Kansu and named Chu to that post. However, he refused the appointment and retired temporarily to Shanghai.

After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in July 1937, Chu became the director of the administrative section of the Military Affairs Commission and then served as commander in chief of the Ninth Route Army, the central force in the Shanghai sector. When the Nationalist forces were overcome by the Japanese, Chu was transferred to northwest China, where he was given command of the Eighth War Area, with headquarters at Lanchow. He also held office as governor of Kansu from 1938 to 1940. He then relinquished the Kansu governorship to his Tokyo classmate Ku Cheng-lun, but retained his military command.

While serving as senior Nationalist military commander at Lanchow, Chu Shao-liang made what was perhaps his major political contribution to the Kuomintang cause: extending Nationalist control into Sinkiang province. Formally, Sinkiang was part of the Eighth War Area, and in March 1942 Chu Shao-liang made a trip to Urumchi to begin preliminary discussions with Sheng Shih-ts'ai (q.v.). Because German armies were then driving hard across southern Russia, Sheng reconsidered his pro- Soviet alignment and proved receptive to Chu's representations. In July 1942, Chu, accompanied by Wong Wen-hao (q.v.), the minister of economic affairs in the National Government at Chungking, made another official trip to Urumchi to negotiate the formal establishment of Kuomintang authority in the province. Sheng agreed to order the expulsion from Sinkiang of Russian military, technical, and economic advisers.

The withdrawal of the Russians in 1943 paved the way for the Kuomintang to extend its influence into Sinkiang. However, because the Soviet Union had begun to inflict a series of defeats on the Germans, Sheng wished to reconsider the matter of pro-Russian alignment. Accordingly, in 1944 Chu Shao-liang again served as Chungking's special emissary to Sinkiang, and in August he was appointed acting governor of Sinkiang and was directed to remove Sheng from his entrenched position in the province. Chu made another trip to Urumchi, and, perhaps because of the superior military forces at his disposal, he persuaded Sheng Shih-ts'ai to accept the sinecure post of minister of agriculture and forestry in the National Government. Sheng finally left Urumchi aboard a special plane sent to take him to Chungking. Chu Shao-liang then turned over the provincial governorship of Sinkiang to Wu Chunghsin (q.v.) and left the province in October 1944.

In 1945 Chu Shao-liang became deputy chief of staff of the Military Affairs Commission. In 1947 he was appointed deputy director of Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters at Chungking. In 1948, he served as pacification commissioner at Chungking, with authority over the four southwestern provinces of Szechwan, Yunnan, Sikang, and Kweichow. Late in 1948 he was transferred to Fukien, where he became provincial governor and pacification commissioner.

After the general collapse of Nationalist authority on the mainland in 1949, Chu Shaoliang moved to Taiwan. For several years he held the nominal position of adviser to the President on military strategy. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Taipei on 25 December 1963, at the age of 73. In 1917, while stationed in Kweichow, Chu Shao-liang married Hua Te-fen. They had two sons and eight daughters.